1994 – Evolver

In 1994, electronics, gadgets, toy, and games were my entire world. I was 10. I remember stumbling on to a movie on the Sci-Fi channel around the same time (ya’know, SyFy now?). Evolver. Evolver is a B-Movie about a kid who wins a prize by getting a high score in an arcade game contest. Kind of. Anyway, he gets the prize robot, and then the robot starts killing people.

Alright, so it’s pretty straight forward and B-Movie style. But there were some stars in there! Ethan Embry was the main character, and William H. Macy was the voice of the Evolver robot. Evolver is the name of the film and the murderous robot because of how, every time you “beat” it in a game, it “evolves” and learns from the environment and experiences. It’s a basic plot with a little thriller horror and not very many unexpected twists. But man is it fun. It takes place in the same universe as the movie Arcade and has a few recurring characters, but you do not need anything at all from the others to sit down and enjoy Evolver.